Silhouette
by Nalanzu
Summary: Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger: ESPers are at the mercy of a vigilante seemingly able to enter and leave the DekaBase at will, leaving no trace.
1. Chapter 1

Silhouette: Chapter 1

_Running. Always running. He pounded down the street, legs pumping, muscles burning. Lungs cried out with the need for oxygen even as they heaved, trying to reach the vital element. He turned a corner, nearly overbalancing, feet skidding on the slick pavement. His next step hit a patch of oil, the leaking trail of a dripping vehicle. His foot slid out and he hit the ground hard._

_Stars danced over his eyes, bright flashes fading in and out. He watched, nearly mesmerized, before a sound caught his attention and he scrambled to his feet again. It was dark – when had the sun set? – and the streetlights were still shrouded in shadow. He glanced over his shoulder fearfully, seeing no one. Sight was overrated anyway. He took off again, sprinting at first. The pavement vanished, replaced by weed-studded gravel. The sound of heavy breathing resonated in his ears. He tried to outrun it before realizing that it was his own._

_Silence lay thick around him when he finally stopped, smothering the sky in mist. White clouds rolled in, heavy and damp. He reached out, found a handhold, began climbing. The nearly vertical surface had already collected beads of moisture, decreasing the surety of his already shaky grip. He was nearly at the top when he slipped, and began to fall backwards. A hand caught his wrist and pulled him to safety. For a split second, the motion was so familiar, so expected, that he cooperated fully and stood next to the unknown figure. "Thanks," he said._

_The sound rang in his ears, and brought him out of the trance. He recognized the figure now. Danger, said that sixth sense, the one that brought him through the battles and wars of his days as a soldier. He flung himself backwards, scrabbling for a solid surface. _

"_Wait!" _

_It wasn't his voice speaking, and for a split second, he almost listened. He shook his head doggedly and turned to flee._

"_I'm sorry." _

_That wasn't his voice either, but he didn't register the meaning of the words until a stinging sensation in his lower back transformed into a spreading numbness._

"_You… bastard…" he gasped before the numbness that paralyzed his entire body strangled his mind._

* * *

"Ban! Stay!"

Ban pulled up short, turning to glare at his partner. "Partner –"

"Don't call me that."

Ban sulked.

"Wait for Jasmine's signal. _Then_ we go in."

"But –"

Hoji glared.

Muttering, Ban capitulated. The alienizer they were chasing wasn't particularly nasty, or dangerous, or anything else. Sure, it was an ESPer, but the SPD had an ESPer, too. It wasn't like they were going to lose or anything. Not with Jasmine on their side.

From inside the building, a scream rang out, choked off suddenly before it finished. It sounded like Jasmine. Ban was up and running before the last echoes had died away, shooting an I-told-you-so glance at his partner. Not that Hoji could see it behind the helmet, but it was the principle of the thing.

Hoji ran beside him, appearing to pay no attention to him whatsoever. Ban's temporary inattention meant that Hoji was slightly faster, and reached the warehouse a split second earlier. That split second nearly cost Hoji his life. Ban saw the explosion building and shoved his partner down just as the shockwave roared over them.

Light burned into him, superheating the metal that made up his suit. Ban heard a scream that might have been his own during the few brief seconds of agony that seemed to stretch into an eternity before the pressure finally vanished. Smoke charred his suddenly raw throat and he coughed. "Are you all right, partner?" It was hard to speak.

Hoji was still underneath him, and he wriggled out. Ban knew he was trying to be careful, but each movement still hurt like hell. "I told you not to call me that," he said after a moment, but his voice was almost soft. Ban would have liked to see the expression on Hoji's face, but he couldn't seem to open his eyes.

"Ban! Hoji!" The voice belonged to Tetsu, just recently the sixth member of the SPD. "Are you – oh, no."

"Quiet." That was Hoji again, voice sharp. "Ban?" He sounded gentle, not like Hoji at all. "We're going back now. I'm going to get you a ride."

"Mm," Ban assented. It felt like he was floating, with only the voices of his two teammates anchoring him to the ground. He thought vaguely that there should be more than two, though. _Where's everyone else?_

"Stay with me, Ban." Even his partner's voice wasn't quite enough to keep him there, though, and all conscious thought drifted away.

* * *

"How are you feeling, Ban?" Umeko tried to sound cheerful.

"Nrrrrgh," Ban muttered into the pillow. He had burns over his back and legs, and stitches in several places where he'd been hit by flying shrapnel. If either he or Hoji had been standing when the blast had hit, it probably would have killed them. As it was, Ban was very very lucky.

"Hoji's fine, just some bruises," she continued. "Sen got knocked on the head, though, so they're keeping him here for a couple days."

"What about Jasmine?" Ban asked after a moment, voice muffled. He was lying on his side, facing away from her.

"Um… she'll be fine," Umeko said brightly. Jasmine hadn't even been in the warehouse when the bomb had gone off; the alienizer had reproduced her voice somehow. She had been found unconscious outside, later. There were no visible injuries, but she had yet to awaken.

"Liar," Ban returned.

"She'll be –" Umeko's SP License chirped, and she flipped it open. It was Doggie Kruger, the head of Earth's division of the SPD. "Yes, Boss?"

"Tetsu needs your help. I've alerted Hoji as well."

"On my way." Umeko leaned over and gently touched Ban's shoulder. "Feel better, okay?"

"Thanks, Umeko." From behind, she couldn't quite tell, but she thought he was trying to smile. She patted his shoulder and ran towards the Machine Bull.

By the time she and Hoji arrived, Tetsu had managed to corner the alienizer. "This one's approved for capture only," he said calmly. The alienizer made a break for it, apparently thinking that he was distracted. Tetsu grabbed it without even looking and threw it back against the building. "Hoji?"

Hoji produced alienizer-sized handcuffs from parts unknown and approached. "This will be much easier on you if you just cooperate," Umeko told it helpfully. The alienizer snarled, apparently unable or unwilling to produce human speech.

Hoji snapped the cuffs around the alienizer's wrists. "Let's go."

Conceding defeat, the alienizer slouched into the back of the Machine Bull. Normally, Sen would be partnering Umeko, but Hoji slid into the seat beside her this time. Tetsu followed them, leaning into the window. "There's another incident. I'll meet you later, sempai."

"Should one of us go with you?" Umeko asked worriedly. With fully half the team incapacitated, the SPD was more vulnerable to attack than it ever had been before. Word was beginning to get out, and the number of alienizer incursions into Earth would probably start increasing.

"Boss is backing me up," Tetsu assured her. "Besides, don't regulations say that two officers stay with a prisoner at all times?" His eyes flicked to Hoji and then back, so briefly Umeko thought she might well have imagined it.

"Yes," Hoji said shortly. "Let's go."

"Does it look strange to you?" Umeko eyed the base from the outside several minutes later. It was too quiet, all the protective shielding over the doors and window shut. Hoji barely looked at her before unlocking the outer door. Inside the base was a total contrast; it was in an uproar. Alarms were going off, and none of the personnel were at their assigned stations.

"Umeko, take him down to the cell block." Hoji was gone before she could respond.

Umeko sighed. "Come on." The alienizer climbed out of the Machine Bull meekly enough, but as soon as it was clear, it tried to run again. Umeko yanked it back and planted a fist directly in its gut. The alienizer doubled over, wheezing. "Don't do that," she told it sharply. "It's no use." The alienizer hung its head.

By the time she made it up to the briefing room, the alarms had been shut off. Hoji was issuing rapid-fire orders to several of the staff through the communications lines, but Doggie Kruger was nowhere to be seen. Another screen showed the reason for that; he and Tetsu were busy dealing with yet another alienizer. It seemed to be an even fight, but in the middle of an exchange of fire, the alienizer inexplicably stopped attacking and ran. Umeko frowned.

The tracking cameras followed Dekabreak and Dekamaster as they gave chase to the alienizer, and Umeko moved closer to the screen. The alienizer didn't try to activate a mecha, though. Its vehicle climbed straight up and away from Earth.

"Umeko." Hoji's voice startled her, and she jumped. "What's going on?"

Umeko gestured towards the screen. "It ran," she said. "I don't why. What happened here?"

"One of the ESPers was attacked." Hoji sounded disgusted.

"Hoji, report!" Doggie strode into the briefing room, still clad in the Deka suit. _The alienizer must have been close to the base,_ Umeko thought distantly, _or he wouldn't have been able to make it here so fast._

"One of the ESPers was attacked," Hoji repeated. "But there's no evidence that an alienizer got onto the base."

"Are you sure it was an attack?"

"The pattern of injury indicates assault, but we won't know for certain until she wakes up and we can ask her. She's in the infirmary now." The quick tapping of keys sounded, and Hoji called up an image from the security cameras. "She was found like this, about fifteen minutes ago. The footage of the time during the attack has been erased."

"See if you can get it back."

Umeko tuned her teammates out and looked towards the screen again. The ESPer had been working in one of the ceiling stations; she had apparently fallen several feet. Most of her injuries had probably come from the fall, but there was an odd pattern of burns on her hands and forearms. They were branded in a defense pattern, as if she'd been warding something off.

Something about the image caught Umeko's eye, and she edged closer. The same type of burn that marked the woman's hands was also present on her temple. She had no chance to make a note of it before yet another alarm went off and the third fight of the day began.

* * *

"Hi, Sen-chan!"

Sen looked up to see Umeko's smiling face. It was a strained smile, as if she were trying too hard. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing!" she said quickly. "You get to come home, though. I'm here to pick you up."

Obviously, Umeko was lying. He'd been watching the news and knew that the number of alien attacks had increased dramatically in the past few days. All of them had been random, though, with no pattern that he could see. But the frequency of incidents in and itself was cause for concern. Sen was sure there was someone or something encouraging them, but there was no clue as to who it might be.

"All right, then," he said, smiling. Umeko had her reasons for not being quite honest, and it was probably in part because she was worried about him.

Once outside the hospital, he could see the marks of the fights from the past several days. It looked worse than he'd heard, even if the city was now almost eerily silent. As they approached the base, he noticed that the signs of damage decreased. The base itself was completely untouched. _Odd._

"We're here," Umeko said unnecessarily, breaking the silence. Sen smiled again before heading for the briefing room. Umeko protested weakly, but broke off before he could say anything.

The briefing room was a mess, files and papers everywhere. Hoji sat at the computer, fingers dancing over the keys, Doggie peering over his shoulder. "Boss-" Sen began.

"Shh." Doggie interrupted him and nodded towards the table, where Tetsu was asleep in one of the chairs, head down on his arms.

"Sorry," Sen whispered. "You didn't tell me it was this bad," he added.

"You were injured," Doggie replied. "You couldn't have helped."

Sen frowned. Even without actively fighting – which he felt he would have been capable of doing, head wound or no – he could have done something. There was nothing to be done for it now, though. "What's the situation now?"

Doggie shook his head. "All activity has stopped."

"Stopped? Completely?" Sen waited for Doggie's affirming nod before continuing. "Is there any word from our contacts on the street?"

"There hasn't been time. It happened less than an hour ago."

"Let me go see what I can find out, then."

Doggie considered. "You should take backup."

"Who?" Sen looked pointedly around the room. Hoji's hands had stilled and he was staring at the screen with his eyes half closed. Umeko was leaning against the doorway, clearly exhausted. "Ban and Jasmine are still out of commission."

"All right." Doggie sighed. "But, Sen, do _not_ engage any hostiles. Understand?"

"Yes, sir!"

* * *

Sen was much less optimistic several hours later. No one was talking. He couldn't even find most of the alienizers who had been willing to offer information in the past. It was almost as if Earth's entire alien population had packed up and left. Those few who remained refused to offer more than a strained greeting. At least Doggie's warning had been useless; it appeared that there were no hostiles left to engage.

"Sen! Respond!"

Sen flipped open his SP License. "Boss?"

"What have you found out?"

Sen shook his head. "Nothing concrete."

"In that case, report back to the base immediately. We have a situation."

"Yes, sir." There hadn't been any sirens in the background; whatever the situation was, Sen concluded that the base wasn't on full alert. Given what he'd observed already, his conclusion did not serve to make him feel any better. Without being completely aware of it, he pressed his foot down just a little harder on the accelerator.

* * *

Something was wrong.

Jasmine knew before she opened her eyes, because if everything had been all right she wouldn't have had to open them in the first place. Then she realized she couldn't move at all. Blind and helpless, she could only listen to the sounds around her.

The sound of rushing water met her ears, but the surface that she felt was cool and dry. Jasmine listened underneath the water, trying to focus her senses. The last thing she remembered was facing off against an alienizer that had been classified as a mid-level threat. Its greatest weapon was its ESPer ability, but she'd been confident she could handle it. _I hope no one else got hurt._ She was fairly certain she was either badly injured or a captive. Neither option was particularly appealing.

There were no sounds other than that of the water. Jasmine tried harder, but no matter how much she listened, she couldn't hear anything else. _That's impossible._ No matter where she was, she should have been able to hear something.

_I'm not really awake._

It was the only thing that made sense. And if she was this cognizant without truly being awake, then something was actively preventing her from waking up. _A captive, then._

**awake?**

The voice seemed to be whispering in her ear one second, and the next it sounded as if it came from so far away as to be nearly unintelligible. It was familiar, but she couldn't place it.

"Who are you?" she tried to say, but she couldn't speak.

**unacceptable**

She wasn't sure if it had heard her or not. She tried again, this time projecting her thoughts as she had been taught to do through so many painstaking lessons. "Who are you? What do you want?"

**sleep**

"_Stop!_" It was no use. Jasmine felt the walls of her mind close with frightening swiftness, plunging her into silence.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Silhouette: Chapter 2

* * *

The area around the body was clean. Hoji stared at the still figure, looking for any sign that the death was not accidental. The problem was, it looked so straightforward. Ebara Shinji, ESPer and practical engineer, had been reworking one of the damaged sections on the Patrol Gyrer. The job was too delicate to entrust to one of the servobots that normally handled repairs; the panel he'd been working on had been completely fried. Ebara had been attempting to assess the damage and set up the repair protocols. An electrical surge had overwhelmed the circuits, and discharged straight into him.

"It doesn't make sense," Hoji muttered.

"What doesn't?" Doggie asked. Standing a few feet away, he was examining the charred panel.

"He was an ESPer," Hoji said. "He had an affinity for machines. He should have been able to avoid electrocution."

Doggie straightened and turned towards him. "You think this was deliberate?"

Hoji shook his head. "There was no one else here. It's just… this is the second time that an ESPer has had an accident in less than two days." The burn pattern on Ebara's arms seemed odd, too. A sparking panel didn't normally cause quite that much superficial damage.

Whatever Doggie might have said was cut off by the precipitous arrival of the newest team member. "Boss!" Tetsu skidded to a halt in front of them. "There's an alienizer going berserk!"

Doggie nodded to Hoji. "This will have to wait. Suit up and go."

"Roger!" Hoji dashed off, Tetsu right on his heels. Umeko was waiting in the Machine Doberman already, and just as Tetsu slid into the seat beside her, Sen pulled up in the Machine Bull. Hoji jumped into it before it had finished moving. "Go!"

"What?" Obviously, no one had thought to contact Sen, even though he'd already been outside the base.

"Alienizer!" Sen simply nodded and peeled out after Umeko.

The alienizer was in the far outskirts of town, and Hoji wished there was a way that living matter could be teleported in the way that the DekaMetal was. It was, of course, impossible; there was no way to put the molecules back in the right order. The early tests had proven that quite conclusively. Still, it would have enabled them to get to this particular alienizer a lot more quickly.

The alienizer was a Brimir-seijin – huge, strong, and generally not capable of mentally grasping the finer points of any given issue. What they lacked in brains, however, they more than made up for in sheer physical ability. Hoji didn't recognize this particular one, but the ones he'd come across in the past had been amicable enough. It seemed that this one was the exception that goes hand in hand with every rule.

The damage already done to the surrounding area was incredible. Cars had been thrown through buildings, walls had been crumbled, and even the earth itself had been split open. Live power lines snaked across the ground, occasionally sparking and writhing as if alive.

"Watch yourselves," Hoji said quietly as they climbed out of the vehicles. "He's faster than he looks." Their orders were again capture and not kill; the target had no previous serious criminal record.

Umeko threw him an exasperated look, clearly stating that she knew that perfectly well and could they please just get on with it already. Amazing, the amount of information the short girl could pack into a glance.

"Transform, and fan out," Hoji instructed.

The Brimir-seijin roared and threw the last intact on-scene vehicle – a motorcycle – straight at Tetsu. Tetsu dodged, coming to his feet clad in his pristine white armor. Hoji had a feeling it wouldn't stay white for long. The Brimir-seijin roared again, its voice overlaid with frustration. _That's odd. They're capable of human speech._

"Modify attack formation Delta-12!" Sen had given that order, but Hoji knew Sen well enough by now to listen.

"Roger!" Hoji and Umeko replied.

"Delta-12?" Tetsu asked, straightening and turning towards Sen slightly. The Brimir-seijin rushed forward to knock Tetsu six meters back and through a glass wall. "Ow," he muttered, and Hoji figured he was all right.

"Further modify Delta-12," Hoji snapped.

Sen darted towards the Brimir-seijin, firing on it with his blaster and flipping gracefully out of the way of its fists. While he was distracting it, Hoji and Umeko circled around from behind. "Ready?" Hoji muttered.

Umeko nodded, and Hoji sank to one knee. She sprang upwards, angling her descent towards him. If it had been anyone but Umeko, Hoji wouldn't have tried the move alone. Umeko was light enough that he was able to catch her and propel her straight towards the unsuspecting Brimir-seijin's back. Umeko somersaulted once and struck the back of the Brimir-seijin's neck with both booted feet as Hoji rolled to the side and fired his blaster at its unprotected abdomen.

The Brimir-seijin went absolutely still, small eyes fixed forward. Umeko landed lightly, glancing at Hoji. Then the Brimir-seijin screamed, an expression of pure rage, and lunged towards her. Umeko was too close to get away, but just before it reached her, a white and blue blur cannoned into the Brimir-seijin, knocking it flat against the pavement and out cold.

"Is everyone all right?" Tetsu brushed shards of glass off his armor.

"Fine," Umeko answered, echoed by Sen. "Hoji?" she added.

Hoji cuffed the Brimir-seijin, making sure it was firmly restrained. "We're going to have to call in special transport. He won't fit in either of the cars."

"What was he trying to do?" Tetsu asked, sending his armor away in a brief flash, and looking around at the near-total destruction.

Hoji shook his head. "I have no idea."

Beside them, Sen remained almost conspicuously silent.

* * *

The city remained almost dead quiet for the next several days. There were no strange occurrences, no off-world incursions, and even the human criminal element seemed to be keeping out of sight.

Tetsu didn't like it.

True, he didn't have much field experience. But it seemed to him that the city was holding its collective breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It made him edgy, and he could tell that no one else was particularly happy either.

The atmosphere inside the base was wound tight, a poorly-defined tension lining every word and action. No one fought, though, or argued; it was as if one slip would unleash whatever it was that was waiting.

Even Ban had been subdued since his reinstatement. Then again, Tetsu reflected, as he neared the briefing room and heard Ban shouting at Hoji, perhaps 'subdued' wasn't quite the right word.

"There's nothing there!"

"You haven't looked!" There was the sound of something slamming down. Tetsu peered through the open door. Hoji's hand was resting on a stack of paper, and Ban was seated stiffly at the table, eyeing it angrily.

Hoji retracted his hand. Ban stood up, showing no sign of discomfort from his as yet unhealed injuries, and swept the stack onto the floor. "This is pointless! Boss!"

Tetsu didn't know what Ban was asking Doggie for, and he wasn't going to get the chance to find out. Doggie saw him lurking in the doorway and beckoned him inside. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, Boss." Tetsu sidled past Ban and Hoji, who were now glaring at each other silently. "I just got this." He handed Doggie a slim folder. "Akagi Fumiko wrapped her car around a signpost last night just after leaving the base."

Hoji broke off his stare and looked incredulously towards Tetsu. "Akagi Fumiko? From the infirmary?"

Tetsu nodded slowly. "You know her?"

Hoji shook his head. "Not well. Boss, she's one of our ESPers."

"I'm aware of that, Hoji," Doggie rumbled. "How is she?"

"Not good," Tetsu replied. "She suffered extensive tissue damage. She's lucky she's alive at all." For the briefest of moments, he remembered another face, another woman trapped in a ruined car, but he shoved the memory away. This was something completely different.

"I see." Doggie sighed heavily, and put the file away without looking at it. The strain was getting to him as well.

"Where are Sen and Umeko?" Tetsu asked, glancing between the other three and trying to ask a safe question.

"Visiting Jasmine," Hoji replied, momentarily distracted from whatever had been bothering him before.

"She still hasn't woken up." As much as Tetsu wanted it to be a question, one that might have a positive answer, it came out as a flat statement.

Ban paused in his pacing, stopping just short of kicking a swathe through the pile of papers on the floor. "No," he said dully. He looked down as if surprised to see the reports, and began picking them up. "Not yet." He dumped the disorganized stack on the table and glared at Hoji again, but it looked like a half-hearted glare to Tetsu.

"Boss!" Hoji stepped forward abruptly.

"The ESPers on this base are being targeted," Sen interrupted, striding through the door. "Akagi Fumiko was taken out last night."

Hoji threw him an annoyed look.

"Get the other three up here immediately," Doggie said sharply. "Where are they now?"

Tetsu frowned. One area of the base was presumably as safe as another – nothing got in that wasn't authorized first. He amended his thoughts after remembering a few mission reports. _Almost nothing._ So for Doggie to want the ESPers up here, without using the comm system, he either suspected one of the base's employees, or he thought the base had been compromised.

Fingers clacking over the keyboard in the corner, Hoji answered. "They're all here. Checked in this morning." He rattled off a series of names and locations.

"I want you to escort them up here. Go!"

They jogged towards the door, and Tetsu followed Hoji when they split off in three different directions. It wasn't that he thought Hoji needed the backup, but his ESPer was farthest away. If something had infiltrated the base, he was the one most likely to run into trouble.

Tetsu should have joined Ban instead; he and Hoji had nearly reached their ESPer when Ban activated the comm. "There's a problem," he said, sounding distinctly uneasy and not like himself at all.

Tetsu glanced at Hoji. "I'll be right there," he said into his communicator after Hoji nodded reluctantly.

There was a brief hesitation. "Roger that." Tetsu heard Ban click his communicator off, and he all but ran towards Ban's location.

The first thing Tetsu was aware of as he rounded the corner was red. The vibrant color drew his eye and held it. Ban himself stood completely still, the color on his uniform eerily matching the color on the floor. The ESPer he'd gone to collect lay in a spreading pool of his own blood, throat slit. There was no weapon in sight.

"Ban." Tetsu's voice, though soft, was enough to startle Ban badly. He jumped and turned around, face white.

"I was too late…"

"We have to alert the base." Tetsu raised his communicator, but Ban slapped his hand down.

"There's an intruder," he whispered, holding Tetsu's wrist tightly.

"That's why!" Tetsu argued, trying to free his hand.

"It's one of us!" Ban snapped.

Tetsu glared at him and yanked his hand away. "Boss, one of the ESPers is dead. It was not an accident. Recommend the base go on full lockdown." He closed the channel and turned to face Ban. "What do you mean, one of us?"

Ban was gone.

* * *

Sen arrived back to the briefing room to find that only Hoji had returned. He had briefed his charge – Yamada Keiko, tech support – on the situation. Since the remaining ESPer – Kurosawa Yui, intern – showed no signs of confusion, he assumed Hoji had done the same.

"No, sir," Kurosawa was saying. "I'm a telekinetic." She glanced down briefly. "I wish I could help, sir, but I don't have that kind of talent."

"I see," Doggie replied. "Ms. Yamada, you're also a telekinetic?"

"Yes, sir," Sen's charge replied. "I've been working with Ms. Kurosawa since she started here."

Doggie sighed. If Sen had known him less well, he wouldn't have noticed. "Have either of you had any luck contacting Umeko?"

Sen shook his head; Hoji did the same.

"I'm here, I'm here!"

Umeko dashed into the briefing room, breathless and slightly disheveled. "There's something wrong with this; it's completely dead." She pulled her SP License out of a pocket and laid it on the table. "What's going on? I barely managed to make it in before the base locked down."

Doggie explained to Umeko. Sen tuned him out, examining her license instead. It appeared to be in working order, except that it… wasn't. There were no scratches or dents, nothing to indicate that it had been damaged in any way. It was simply inert. He frowned.

The odds of an SP License spontaneously ceasing to work were very, very high, in Sen's opinion. "Would you look at this?" he said quietly, handing the license to Yamada. She took it silently and opened it with tools produced from who knew where. After a moment, she looked up and shrugged.

"I don't know," she said just as quietly. "It should be working properly."

As if her words were some kind of trigger, the license beeped twice and started flashing.

"You fixed it!" Umeko chirped. "Thank you!"

Yamada stared at the license for a moment before closing it again. "No, I didn't." Her words were too quiet for anyone but Sen to hear.

"Umeko, accompany Hoji, Sen, and the ESPers to Isolation Ward 2. I want the three of you guarding them until we can find the culprit. Ban and Tetsu will join you shortly." Doggie's voice overrode the ESPer's.

Sen had expected something like this. The probability that the culprit had escaped the base lockdown was almost nil. With the two remaining targets under guard in the same place, they wouldn't have to go looking for the alienizer; it would come straight to them. Both ESPers understood that, in a way, they were being used as bait. Sen could see it in their faces. But, as he would have expected from Special Police personnel, they both simply nodded.

"Um, Boss?"

"Yes, Umeko?"

She hesitated, shifting her weight. "I'm not sure how to say this, but, um, I brought Jasmine back."

"You did _what_?" The exclamation had come from Hoji; even as Sen looked at him, he muttered a curt, "Sorry."

"She woke up, Boss. She said she _had_ to get back to the base. She kept saying, 'He's there, he's there', and…" Umeko bit her lip. "I didn't know what else to do. I was afraid that if I didn't bring her back, she'd hurt herself."

Doggie's eyes narrowed. "Where is she now?"

"In the infirmary. She collapsed again as soon as we got inside." To Sen's eye, Umeko was the very picture of regretful distress. "I know I shouldn't have taken her out of the hospital, but…"

"All right. We'll move her to the quarantine lab. The rest of you get down there immediately. Jasmine is as much of a target now as anyone else." Doggie's expression said that Umeko would be dealing with the consequences of her actions once the greater threat had been dealt with.

"Yes, sir!"

* * *

Ban was nowhere to be found. Tetsu had called him on his SP License at first, thinking that… He didn't know what he'd been thinking. But Ban hadn't answered, and Tetsu had no idea where he'd gone. The body was in an intersection, with nearby stairwells leading up and down. By the time Tetsu thought to check, any doors would have finished falling shut. He looked up and down the stairs anyway.

After a moment of indecision, Tetsu returned to the body of the ESPer. The throat had been cut, but it wasn't a clean cut. It looked almost as if something had literally torn through the soft tissue at the base of the man's neck. Without touching the body, Tetsu circled around it. The fabric of the left uniform sleeve was torn as well. The ESPer had seen his attacker and tried to defend himself. He hadn't lasted long.

Tetsu searched the surrounding corridors, but, with one exception, there was no further sign of a struggle. All the cameras covering that particular corridor – there were five, including the hidden lens in the ceiling – had been smashed. Tetsu made a mental note to go over the footage thoroughly.

A few more minutes saw the arrival of the DekaBase coroners' team; usually, they dealt with the alienizer casualties that the city police couldn't or wouldn't handle. Today, they were acting in their other role; to take care of the DekaBase's own. Tetsu left the body to them and reported to Doggie.

"Boss?"

"Tetsu. The others are standing guard in the quarantine room. I want you to join –"

Tetsu normally wouldn't have interrupted his superior officer, but now he felt that circumstances warranted it. And for all his training, he didn't know what to do. "Boss, Ban's gone."

There was a pause. "What do you mean, 'gone'?" Doggie asked, voice suspiciously calm.

"I mean I turned around and he wasn't there! I don't know where he is!"

"What happened?" Doggie's voice retained its evenness. Tetsu thought that if he'd been in Doggie's place, he'd probably be cracking. He told Doggie that he'd gotten Ban's call and had arrived on the scene moments later to find the ESPer dead.

"Was there anything else?"

Tetsu was about to tell Doggie Ban's final words when a thought hit him. _It's one of us_, Ban had said. If Ban was right, and the culprit was a Deka… the thought alone sickened Tetsu. And yet, there was something compelling about Ban's certainty; Tetsu had never once had reason to doubt Ban's instincts. Much as Tetsu disliked the trail his thoughts were leading him down, he couldn't stop them. _What if it's Boss?_

"No, sir," Tetsu replied. For a moment, common sense pulled at him. There was nothing wrong with Doggie Kruger, Ban was paranoid, and the worst problem they had was a seemingly undetectable serial killer trapped in the base. "I mean…" He paused, mind racing.

"Was there something or not, Tetsu?" Doggie prompted impatiently.

"No, s- It's Ban, Boss." He had to say something. Doggie was his superior officer. "He thinks one of the team is responsible." Doggie had access to all the relevant personnel files; he knew who the ESPers on the base were. He had the most mobility, the most control over the base's computer. If Doggie were to tamper with records, it was doubtful that they could be recovered. He was probably in the best position to execute this series of slayings, but Tetsu couldn't bring himself to suspect the near-legendary DekaMaster.

"_What_?"

"That's all he said, before he ran off."

"Find him. Immediately." Doggie clicked off, and Tetsu was left to wonder if he'd been wrong to say something to him after all. Maybe Ban was the only one he could trust. _Unless Ban had something to do with it, and is trying to throw you off the trail_, an insidious little voice whispered. Tetsu firmly told that voice to shut the hell up, picked a direction, and started running. Dekas did not run around killing their base personnel. Something else had to be going on, and finding Ban was the first step to unraveling the puzzle.

TBC

* * *

A/N: Continuation for this will be slightly delayed while I wrestle with another insistent bunny. Anyone know how to get those four-inch bunny fangs out from one's ankle? No?


	3. Chapter 3

Revised Chapter 3, 10.1.08

* * *

Isolation Ward Two was a quarantine center, used in both possible infectious disease outbreaks and for the mandatory isolation period following travel to certain planets. Since the quarantine period could, in some cases, last up to several weeks, the ward was furnished to make the experience as pleasant as possible. Several private rooms – each with their own bathing facilities – branched off of two common areas; these were separated by a half-wall and a curtain. A third room held cooking facilities.

Every door could be separately sealed via electronic command. In an emergency, they were entirely self-contained, up to and including the ventilation system. Each room was independently equipped with enough oxygen to last for approximately three days per person. During a normal isolation period, the outgoing air was simply filtered and decontaminated through a complex system.

Still, Umeko reflected, a prison was still a prison. She and Doggie had both gone to collect Jasmine, but nothing had happened along the way. Two medical personnel were actually taking care of Jasmine, but they wouldn't be staying inside the isolation ward.

They had arrived with Jasmine's gurney to find Sen and Hoji going over the perimeter. "It seems to be secure," Hoji said. "Do you need help?"

Umeko shook her head. "We'll be fine, thank you." The nurses had explained everything Umeko would need to do to make sure Jasmine was all right until she woke up, and as a born leader, Umeko had naturally soaked in the information without any difficulties at all.

Yamada and Kurosawa were playing some kind of card game in one of the common areas; for people who had received death threats, both women appeared remarkably calm. Umeko smiled and nodded at both of them as they wheeled Jasmine into a private room and set up the necessary equipment.

"Ha, I got you again!" came Kurosawa's voice from the common area. "Anyone else want to play?"

"I'm going to take a bath first," Umeko said.

"We'll have finished long before you're out of the bath," Sen pointed out.

"Eeeeeeh," Umeko muttered. "We'll do something else, then."

"Take your bath," Hoji said. He was rechecking something on the computer console built into the wall, long fingers moving elegantly across the keys. "Sen and I will take the first shift. We'll switch off to you and Tetsu later this evening, if our assassin doesn't get here first." The screen split into multiple displays, showing every possible approach into the isolation ward. Hoji nudged the wall and a second screen folded out, this one with views of the isolation ward itself.

"Sounds good to me!" Umeko paused. "You'd better not try to watch me taking a bath," she said.

Hoji blinked. "I wouldn't," he said.

"I still remember that time you walked in on me," she warned him.

"That was an alienizer!" Hoji protested.

"Still," Umeko said. "You keep your dirty thoughts to yourself."

Hoji gave up. "No one is going to watch you take a bath. You have my word."

"Okay!" Umeko waved at the other two women and skipped into the one room that had an actual bathtub. (She'd checked beforehand, just to make sure.)

Getting the water the perfect temperature wasn't easy, but Umeko had had lots of practice. She'd brought bubbles and bath salts, too, but now she couldn't decide between lavender and peach. With a slight stab of annoyance, she realized she'd forgotten the lavender lotion, and decided to go with peach instead. After all, peach and strawberry scents went well together.

Her ducks remained safely out of danger in her normal bathing room, deep in the center of the base, but Umeko added extra bubbles. As the bath filled, she stripped and scrubbed down, taking special care with her face and hair. This particular bathtub was a bit larger than the one she was used to, and so Umeko had time to pumice the calluses collecting on her heels. Finally, the water reached the perfect height, and she rinsed herself one final time before sliding into its comforting heat.

Careful to keep the soap out of her eyes, Umeko submerged herself entirely. She came up for air at the last moment, brushing bubbles away from her face. The rich scent of peach filled her nostrils, and she saw with pleasant surprise that the bubbles themselves were also tinted peach. For a while, she amused herself by building mounds of fantastic shapes.

A battle between bubble-ships left the floor slippery and wet, and by the time Umeko tried – and failed – to create portraits of her teammates out of the peach-tinted fluffy mounds, the water was beginning to cool. She yawned, feeling a bit lethargic, and leaned back in the water. It wasn't quite the right temperature for climbing out, and knowing she'd be up most of the night, she let herself slip into a light trance-like state. She wasn't asleep, per se, but when the panicked screams started, it took her a moment to respond.

Umeko was dressed before she thought about it – near-instant costume changes were something of a specialty of hers, and she could don full uniform at a speed some considered positively unhuman – and running towards the common area. She didn't have far to go, but she barely had a chance to realize that it was deathly silent before something hit her on the side of the head and she blacked out.

It couldn't have been more than a moment before Umeko opened her eyes, according to her own estimation, but it was somehow cold. She sat up, hair trailing into her face. She brushed it back, feeling something sticky on her cheek. She lowered her hand and frowned. It was red. She was covered in blood, but the lack of pain told her that none of hit was hers. She felt something behind her, and slowly turned around to see Yamada's slack face. The tech's throat had been ripped out. Umeko clenched her jaw shut, aborting an involuntary movement to press her (blood-covered) hands against her mouth.

"Umeko! Are you all right?" Sen grabbed her shoulders. Umeko nodded. She wasn't wearing much – t-shirt and the formfitting shorts that went underneath uniform skirts to preserve modesty – and it was getting colder by the moment.

"None of it's mine," she said, her voice shaky. "How's K-kurosawa?"

Sen shook his head. "Don't look," he said gently as she started to turn her head. "Jasmine's all right; she's still in her room. Do you know what happened?"

She shook her head. "I ran out of the room and something hit me on the head. What do you remember?"

"Don't answer that," Doggie said over the comm. "Get cleaned up, stay where you are, and don't speak. There have been new developments."

By the time Umeko had bathed – again – and gotten dressed, someone had pulled a sheet over the bodies of both Yamada and Kurosawa, rearranging them into a properly dignified position. Umeko leaned against the half-wall, seeing the bodies of women she had promised and failed to protect out of the corner of her eye, and waited.

* * *

Tetsu didn't run very far. There was a secondary control room for the base not far from the ESPer, and footage from the smashed cameras should have been available, but that wasn't the reason he slowed and came to a stop. Retracing his steps, Tetsu returned to the body.

The coroner's team had already taken it away, leaving the corridor taped off and the man's bodily fluids still staining the white tile. That was fine; what Tetsu had wanted to see wasn't the body itself. Given his photographic memory, Tetsu knew that the man had had burn marks on his skin, but not his clothing. The burns had corresponded with torn clothing, and with the wounds on his throat.

The ESPer – Tetsu made a mental note to learn his name – had defended himself, but it hadn't been a long fight. A cracked panel a few yards away showed that the man had been running, and had been thrown into the wall. Tetsu examined the area to the best of his limited human ability, but there was nothing that could be specifically determined to have come from the ESPer's attacker. As Tetsu had thought, no part of the hallway showed burn marks, nor was there any sign of electrical damage.

Upon reaching the secondary control room, Tetsu checked the records for power use in the area. There were no signs of anything out of the ordinary; the assassin wasn't pulling power out of the base itself. Just to make sure, he checked the other locations as well. Aside from Akagi Fumiko – who had been attacked off-base, and therefore could not be checked – all locations turned up normal. "Internal power source, unlikely to be technologically compatible with Earth systems," Tetsu murmured.

Almost as an afterthought, he set the base sensors to check for Ban. The security protocols required that he key in his identification code, and as soon as he did so, a message popped up on the screen. Frowning, he clicked it.

"Sempai, I think you're the one I can most likely trust." Ban's voice filled the room, his whisper amplified by the speakers. "I can't explain my reasons. Don't trust anyone. Get to the other two ESPers before it's too late. Keep Jasmine safe." With an audible click, the message vanished. Tetsu spent several agonizing minutes trying to get it back, but it was useless. The file was gone, shredded; where the hell had Ban learned to do something like that? It wasn't his area of expertise.

Tetsu shook his head. That train of thought would get him nowhere. He reached for the communication toggle to tell Boss about the message, but his earlier suspicions returned with a vengeance. His instincts were simultaneously telling him that Ban was right and that of course he could trust Boss. But if Ban were the culprit, telling Tetsu instead of Boss would keep the team divided, but then why would he warn Tetsu about the other ESPers, except that they'd already put a guard around them and he wasn't telling Tetsu anything he didn't already know, unless he was aiming for something else.

Tetsu's fingers stilled on the keys. The base itself was a formidable weapon, and if Ban somehow managed to take Boss down, he could destroy the city and maybe the world before the rest of them could get in there to stop him. It wouldn't be the first time something like that had happened. Tetsu left secondary control in a rush – any precautions he could take against activation of the base could be overridden and deliberately crippling the giant mecha wasn't exactly an option, either.

The base was in semi-lockdown until further notice, which meant the hallways were empty of all non-essential personnel. No one would enter or leave the base until this situation had been handled. Tetsu encountered no one on his desperate run up to the main control room. He morphed into DekaBreak before going inside, but the control room was empty, too. Tetsu returned the suit and checked the control panels. They appeared untouched; nothing had been added to the programming, no one had ibeen/i inside. Using his authority as a member of the Special Forces Squad, Tetsu let a lock onto the transformation sequence. Even Boss wouldn't be able to key in the command line, and if the assassin tried to set the base into mecha formation, Tetsu would be alerted.

He had just finished and was about to leave the main control room, when a silent alert vibrated his SP License. "There's been another development," Boss said when Tetsu answered. "The two ESPers under guard have been killed."

"But they were under guard," Tetsu protested, knowing that the words meant nothing.

"Yes," Boss said. "I think we have to consider the possibility that Ban was correct."

"You suspect Umeko? Sen? Hoji?" Tetsu asked. "…Ban? Or do you think I did it?" His voice came out more sharply than he had intended, with an edge of bitterness that surprised him.

"I don't think we have a choice," Boss answered. "I'm going to ask you to report to isolation ward 7 with Umeko, Sen, and Hoji. I'll find Ban."

Tetsu opened his mouth to tell Boss about the message he'd gotten from Ban, but the words wouldn't come. "I understand, Boss," he said. Using Ban's security pass as the trigger, he set up a message, coded to vanish as soon as it was played. (He'd learned how to do that as part of his training; but where had Ban?)

Isolation Ward Two was a disaster when he arrived. Umeko sat huddled near the door, and Sen knelt near her, one hand on her shoulder. Hoji was with Jasmine in one of the private rooms, as Tetsu found by the simple method of poking his head through the doors. "Please come with me," he said.

"Where?" Hoji asked.

"Isolation Ward Seven," Tetsu answered.

"Excuse me?" Hoji stared at him, for once at a loss as to how to respond. Tetsu understood his shock perfectly well; Ward Seven was for dangerous criminals who couldn't be kept in the normal cells.

"Boss's orders," Tetsu said apologetically. "I'll be in there with you."

"He can't possibly think –" Hoji stalked out of the room. Tetsu could hear him arguing with Boss on his SP License, and the much quieter reactions of Umeko and Sen.

"Hang in there, Jasmine," he murmured, squeezing her hand, and went to accompany his fellow officers to detention.

* * *

Sen looked around Isolation Ward Seven, noting the placement of everything in the room, the facial expressions of his teammates, their movements, what everyone did and did not say, and filed it all away in the back of his mind. The responsible party was most likely either a Deka or posing as one, and the most likely culprits were he himself, Hoji, and Umeko – they'd been closest to Yamada and Kurosawa.

Reviewing his somewhat hazy memory of the incident, Sen determined that he had been playing cards with the two women in the common area farther from the door. Hoji had been in the other room, curtain drawn. Sen had heard a thud and had gone to investigate. Hoji had been unconscious on the floor, although Sen had thought for one brief and horrifying moment that he was dead. Checking to make sure Hoji was, in fact, alive, Sen had found a strong pulse – and that was the last he remembered. The memory didn't prove Hoji's innocence. Umeko had been in the bath, as far as Sen knew, but he was forced to conclude that nothing he knew about that night offered any definitive proof one way or the other.

"Sen, I'm sorry, but I have to ask you where you were when each of the ESPers was assaulted," Tetsu said. The note of apology seemed to have made a permanent home in his voice. Sen blinked.

"Remind me of the dates and times again," he said. The trouble was, there had been so many Alienizer incidents around the times the first two ESPers had been attacked that it was difficult to remember exactly where he had been, and the third incident had been around one in the morning, when all of them should have been asleep and alone.

Once Tetsu had finished with him, he went on to Hoji and Umeko. Listening with half an ear, Sen confirmed what he already knew – like him, neither of the other two were precisely sure where they had been or what they'd been doing, and the lack of certainty over the timing of the attacks only made it worse. Tetsu reported the information to Boss, and then sat in a corner with his head resting on his knees.

"Do you think it's Ban?" Sen asked quietly. Hoji could probably hear him, but Umeko appeared to be asleep.

Tetsu jumped visibly, pressing himself further into the wall. Then he made a clear effort to relax into a pose of nonchalance. "I don't know," he said finally. "I don't want to." He paused, and then looked Sen straight in the eyes. "I don't want to think it's one of you, either."

Sen found his direct stare somewhat unsettling; if there was something Tetsu was trying to say, he wasn't sure what it was. He murmured something reassuring and backed away.

The first day passed slowly, the second even more so. By the sixth day, Sen was ready to start chipping away at the walls with his fingernails. No information filtered down to them about the state inside or outside the base; Boss refused to talk to them, Jasmine was nowhere to be seen (and presumably still comatose), and Ban didn't show up.

The occasional explosion could be heard outside the base, once the sound loud enough and close enough to shake the isolation ward and send dust fluttering down from the ceiling, although the base did not at any point shift into its mecha form.

Sen bent his considerable intellect to the problem, adding in the facts he'd experienced, the information he'd gotten from Tetsu, and the small bits he'd gleaned from the sounds outside the ward. The most obvious conclusion was that Boss suspected one of them of perpetrating the assassinations, the second that although Ban had initially been the most likely suspect, Boss wasn't taking the chance it was one of the rest of them. Sen also reasoned that the two ESPers who had been attacked earlier were still alive and had not been assaulted again. Furthermore, they were both still unconscious or did not have enough information about their assailant to provide any solid leads.

"But if it's Ban," Sen muttered to himself, eight days in, "then why hasn't he gone after the other two? What's the ultimate purpose here?"

Alienizer activity had returned to something approaching normal levels, if the frequency and volume of explosive sound were anything to go by, and that in and of itself was not something that Sen was happy to hear. If the assassin had indeed had a hand in the odd increases and decreases of hostile activity that had started this whole mess, it would stand to reason that it had gotten what it wanted and was now leaving the rest of the alienizer population alone.

"Then again, one alienizer manipulating the entire community is not something I want to think about." Sen buried his face in his hands, holding his mouth shut. He couldn't help but come to the conclusion that, given the lack of assault on the two ESPers in the infirmary, that one of the people in the cell was the assassin. It ran counter to everything he believed about his teammates, and yet he couldn't squash that tiny niggling doubt. The others seemed to have reached similar conclusions, for none of them spoke much to each other.

Of the four of them, Hoji had tried the hardest to keep them together, to break down the walls that suspicion was building. Sen hated to admit it, but that made him suspect Hoji more. "One of them is possessed," he muttered. "Possessed, or a doppelganger, or has changed bodies with an alienizer." He watched them all for signs of being someone other than themselves, but no one was acting normally, and Sen realized that his behavior couldn't very well be characterized as typical either.

On their tenth day inside the isolation ward, the exterior door opened.

TBC


End file.
